The Importance of Focus: The Inner-Life and Ministry

"But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you" Mathew 6:33 ESV.

My wife and I just moved to a cozy  little apartment in the middle of East Oakland. The entrance to the apartment's parking lot at the back is anything but ideal.

It's very narrow, and our trusty old van Biscuit (yes, we name our cars, don't judge us) can barely fit through the entrance.

The first time we drove Biscuit through this narrow way was a very unnerving and intimidating experience. We drove through it at a snail pace, making sure we didn't leave our side mirrors at the gates.

There is no way we are doing this everyday I thought.

At one point, Biscuit got stuck in the stair's metal handrail, one of the many obstacles that you go through when you enter our parking lot. Poor old Biscuit got stuck in such a way, that no matter if you pulled back or kept going forward, she would endure permanent damage.

After a few months of practice we got very efficient in getting in and out of our parking lot. At this point, we don't really worry about scratching Biscuit.

The trick to getting out of our parking lot damage-free is easy: focus on one side, and the rest will take care of itself.

I eventually learned the exact distance the side mirror needs to be on my left side from the stair's handrails, and as long as I kept that distance (and kept my eyes focused on it) Biscuit would fit right in.

As it is with Biscuit, So it is with Everything Else
I believe Biscuit has taught me an important lesson in life: many times it just requires that we focus on one important thing, and everything else will fall into place.

Much has been said about our ability, or rather our inability to multitask. Despite what we millennials try to do with our laptops on our laps, phone on right hand, tablet on our left, while playing an episode of Parks & Recs on Netflix at the T.V., we suck at multitasking.

I think this is one of the reasons Jesus told us to seek first the Kingdom of God, knowing full well our propensity to juggle many things at the same time, however benevolent they might be.

As Christians and as ministers, we are tempted to seek first our ministry, our service, our congregations and its growth, or whatever else occupies our mind and time, and we do so with a martyr mentality of sacrificing for the Kingdom of God.

I don't think that's what Jesus meant when He told us to seek first the Kingdom.

In the end, our pursuit of ministry, work or deeds, can keep us from being single minded on the Kingdom.

It is not as if we should focus on the Kingdom at the expense of our work. What Jesus is saying is this: focus on my Kingdom; on my saving and loving presence, in my life in you and in the world, and everything else, ministry, work, deeds, passions, dreams will be added to you.

Put Him at the center of your vehicle, and all the wheels will fall into balance.

Doing Vs. Being
I believe this is part of the same principle I described in the second lesson I learned in 2015.

Most of us (if not all of us) have a desire to do great things. Whether that be doing great things in our ministry, our work, or whatever our dreams and passions are, we desire to do something that we are proud of.

I'm starting to believe, however, that this is the wrong focus. This focus runs the danger of making us self-centered, or thinking that we are more important than we really are.

Like I shared in my last post, maybe God is not too impressed with our marvelous deeds.

By focusing on being, and shifting our focus from our deeds to the quality of our inner-life, then we are empowered to work alongside with God and others to do some serious Kingdom work.

This focus on being, or the quality of our-inner life should not be confused with self-focus or self centeredness. Paradoxically, I believe that focusing on our outer-life is what makes us self-centered.

If you are able to focus on your inner life, this should result in selflessness. It is only by knowing who you are in Christ, and in nurturing His life in you, and the constant renewal of your mind to the mind of Christ, that you can go out into the world and act from the quality of your being.

Ministry flows out of being, not the other way around.

Reflections on Turning 30

On August 25th, I turned 30 years old.

On my birthday, different people asked me the same question: "do you feel different now that you are 30?" I was surprised that I answered "yes, I do". I always thought I'd answer "nah, I feel the same way than I did yesterday when I was 29."

In reality I felt different. Way different.

A Sudden Mental Shift
The first person to ask me this question was my fiance. When she asked me the this, I became aware of a sudden mental shift. I didn't feel different physically, but mentally I experienced a kairos moment, where the weight of my age suddenly became real.

With this realization came the sense that I really need to step up my game, rely less and less on convenient excuses (even valid ones) and do my best to shape up.

Holy Crap I thought I am 30 years old now, my age is no longer an excuse.

I didn't think myself especially flaky or unreliable, but I always left many areas of growth to the tyranny of the future, making the unconscious (and sometimes not so unconscious) excuse that I was young, and that I will always have time to shape up in the future.

Of course, no one knows how much time the future will grant to us, and even if we do, the future never really comes. Why leave growth for tomorrow when it is only possible today?

My Past and Future Legacy
My mind started to flow with thoughts of what I've done in my past 30 years. These thoughts created a mixed bag of contradicting emotions. At times I felt disillusioned and at others proud.

I seem to be an incurable idealist. As I have shared in past posts, I've always felt called to do great things.

In my idealist mind I feel that I should have accomplished a lot more than I have. I feel a sense of grief for all the days, weeks and years that seemed to easily escape me. I grieve the days where I simply decided to stay comfortable.

It is a terrible feeling to know you will never get back all those precious moments.

My mind also started to flow with thoughts of what I will do in my next 30 years. I have this sense of urgency, a sense that life is shorter than I actually thought, and that in order to accomplish more with my life, I simply needed to stay uncomfortable.

We want to do great things but we seldom want to build the character that this call requires.

What will our Legacy Be?
If you are not 30 yet and you are reading this post, I believe you can still benefit from these reflections.

No matter our age, it is still possible to learn from other's people reflections and experiences. You don't need to wait until you are 30 in order to finally have a sense of clear purpose.

Life is much shorter than what they tell you.

Life is not simply to be enjoyed but to be experienced. We hide many excuses from this mantra of "enjoying life." Can we say that Jesus, our ultimate model, came to earth to enjoy His life? If we can't claim that for Himself how can we claim it for ourselves?

It is certainly good to enjoy life. It is idolatrous to make enjoyment of one's life our main purpose.

We need to move from inspiration to sacrifice, for inspiration is empty unless it is accompanied by the deep sustenance of self denial.

Don't give up your lofty ideals to the merciless cry of reality. Having a reality check is healthy, but more time needs to be spent in conforming your reality to your ideals than the other way around.

And finally, don't ever get tired of asking yourself this question, what legacy will my present actions bring to my future events?

The Death of an Insidious Dream...

After my decision to follow Jesus in 2002 I knew God was calling me to do something important.

Call it the perennial idealism of my youth or a genuine calling from God, but I had a deep sense that God was calling me for great things.

As the years passed by however, this sense of calling slowly turned into a dream, and from a dream it evolved into an ambition, and then slowly into a sense of entitlement.

I am entitled to do great things for God I thought.

To add to this process of entitlement there were a couple of words of knowledge given to me from a couple of people: God is calling you to do great things for the youth.

Thing is, from my own perspective, I am still waiting for these great things to happen.

A conversation with my fiance prompted me to do some serious thinking about this dream.

"People won't probably write books about us, and that is fine" she told me.

But it wasn't fine with me. I felt disturbed when she said this. And then I knew something was wrong. Why would I not be OK with books not being written about me? How did this pretentious attitude about my life's calling got inside of me?

I felt grieved. I felt that by shining light into the arrogant entitlement of this dream it emphatically and irreversibly died. That's what light does to darkness after all.

In my prayer, I shared with Jesus this grief. Lord, how about all your promises?

Then I heard Him say, "take care of the little things, and let me take care of the great things".

I realize now that my focus, or my purpose, is not to do great things for God, but to take care faithfully and with great love the small things He has put me in charge and leave the rest to Him.

Mathew 20: 26-27 has a lot of things to say about greatness. The greatness spoken of here is so radically different to our westernized idea of greatness, that I wonder if these are two completely different ideas.

We see greatness when mighty and powerful people accomplish many good things for themselves and others. Books are written about these heroes, their praises sung in every corner. Usually, these are people with power and authority.

And then Jesus drops this big one on His disciples: "It shalt no be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant". Awesome.

The word translated from the Greek here as servant is Diakonos, where we get the word for Deacon.

A diakonos was a servant, an attendant, one who served food and was ordered by those in authority to do so. Hardly our idea of greatness.

As if that wasn't enough, Jesus drops off an atomic bomb in the next verse: "...and whoever would be first among you must be your slave". Seriously Jesus?

The Greek word translated as slave here is doulos, which can also be translated as bond servant, one who was so devoted to another that his or her own interest was disregarded.

Jesus moves from being a diakonos as a recipe to be great, to doulos if you want to be the greatest. That's nuts, if you think about it.

And then if you think about it a little longer, you may find it beautiful. The one with less privilege, the one marginalized and mistreated, the one who is disregarded as less than human, this is the one who are great in Jesus' eyes.

And if you want to be great in Jesus' eyes, you must be so utterly in love, so radically and completely lost in God's way, that you have not much time or desire to look at your own self-interest, and your own privileges, whatever they are, are offered to the needs of others.

What Jesus is asking of us is indeed frightening. What He seeks is intimidating and foreign to our own ambitions.

Jesus is not simply something you add on to your life in order to make everything better, or to simply "Christianize" areas of your life.

Following Jesus will inevitably mean dying to ourselves. It ultimately means nothing short of the cross.

I don't want to seek to be famous anymore. I don't want to make the point of my life to do great things.

I want to, instead, do small things with great love, for that's all that is asked of me.